ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Unstable co-creator and star John Owen Lowe and star Sian Clifford about the Netflix comedy series, which begins streaming on March 30. The duo discussed finding comedy in difficult times and acting with your family.
“In a biological research company, a son with social problems is forced to work for the company of his father, an extremely eccentric and exotic man to save him from disaster,” reads the series’ synopsis.
Tyler Treese: John Owen, relationships with parents are obviously complicated and this show explores that so well and so comedically. What really impressed me was there’s so much heart in this show and it deals with overcoming grief as well. Can you speak to that balance of comedy and meaningful subject matter and how each element enhances the other in this show?
John Owen Lowe: It’s a great question. Yeah. I think that humor and pain, inherently, are linked for so many of us, and especially for me, it’s a healthy coping mechanism. If we were being truthful, a lot of the most real, most true moments of grief had some element of … I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to say comedy to them, but humor or humanity, which is inherently funny.
I think that one of the things that was so special about the genesis of this show was that it’s very lighthearted and, like you said, there’s heartwarming moments and people come together, but it’s not just a surface-level, low-stakes world. There’s real things going on for the characters to navigate.
Sian, your character Anna is the one that’s trying to keep this company running, but as she says, she works for a crazy man. What did you like most about her professional nature and her just trying to keep things together when it’s always so close to falling apart?
Sian Clifford: Well, I think she kind of thrives off that sort of challenge in a way, you know? She enjoys being stressed — and I don’t know that she’d admit that, but she loves her job. You’re talking about the stakes, the stakes are so high for her because if that world falls apart, then her life falls apart.
Her relationship with Ellis … they’re incredibly close. They are sort of in a codependent business relationship. But they really care about each other, as you say. And the show has so much heart. I think there’s a lot going on for all the characters, whether it’s the risk of losing their livelihood and their purpose as much as it is losing the thing that they love the most. So yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun to play that.
John Owen, you have great on-screen chemistry with your father, but are you able to break it off and just treat him as another actor? Or is it just impossible to separate when you’re working?
John Owen Lowe: That chemistry only exists in a professional environment between us, we have zero chemistry outside of that. Yeah, no, it’s possible. I think that it has actually helped our personal relationship in many ways because we have something that we both care about to connect over in this show. It has forced us to have a certain level of patience and understanding with each other that has been, honestly, really nice. So yeah, that’s my wholesome answer.
